1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to audio-video data storage and retrieval and in particular to techniques for the selective retrieval of data stored on audio-video media, such as video tape and video disks.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The conventional approach to retrieving selected data from audio-video media is to monitor the audio-video material and manually select and log the audio-video data to be retrieved and to monitor the corresponding counter, timing or other location data to identify the location of the selected video data. As a simple example, if one desires to selectively retrieve portions of a video tape of an educational lecture according to topic, an index would be manually prepared by a human viewer, who must be sufficiently familiar with the topics discussed on the tape to identify and record the location(s) for each of the topics. The index would then be available for search, and audio-video data would be retrieved in accordance with the locations corresponding to topic words selected.
This process is relatively time consuming and expensive and is therefore not often used. The large and growing source of viewable material makes a convenient technique to automatically index data very desirable.